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Can the subaltern securitize? Postcolonial perspectives on securitization theory and its critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2018

Sarah Bertrand Open the ORCID record for Sarah Bertrand [Opens in a new window]
Sarah Bertrand*
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London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
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Abstract

Drawing on postcolonial and feminist writings, this article re-examines securitization theory’s so-called ‘silence-problem’. Securitization theory sets up a definably colonial relationship whereby certain voices cannot be heard, while other voices try to speak for those who are silenced. The article shows that the subaltern cannot securitize, first, because they are structurally excluded from the concept of security through one of three mechanisms: locutionary silencing, illocutionary disablement, or illocutionary frustration. Second, the subaltern cannot securitize because they are always already being securitized and spoken for – as in this case by the well-meaning intellectuals trying to highlight and remediate their predicament. Third, the subaltern cannot securitize because the popular rendering of securitization theory as critical obfuscates and rationalises their marginalisation. This article thus reveals the ‘colonial moment’ in securitization studies, showing how securitization theory is complicit with securitizations ‘for’ that marginalise and silence globally, not just locally outside ‘the West’.

Keywords

Postcolonial and Feminist CritiqueSecuritization StudiesCritical Security StudiesEpistemologySilencingMarginalisationSpeech Act Theory
Type
Junior-Senior Dialogue
Information
European Journal of International Security , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , October 2018 , pp. 281 - 299
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2018 

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References

1 Securitization theory features prominently in the mythological rendering of critical security studies, as well as in textbooks and articles defining its scope. In a 2003 introduction to critical security studies for instance, a whole chapter is devoted to securitization theory, analysing its contributions ‘as a critical approach to security’: Nyman, Jonna, ‘Securitization theory’, in Laura J. Shepherd (ed.), Critical Approaches to Security: An Introduction to Theories and Methods (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 51 Google Scholar. As examples of articles explicitly dealing with the critical dimension of critical security studies and the way in which securitization theory’s fits into this, see, for example, Nunes, João, ‘Reclaiming the political: Emancipation and critique in security studies’, Security Dialogue, 43 (2012), pp. 345–361 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Browning, Christopher S. and McDonald, Matt, ‘The future of critical security studies: Ethics and the politics of security’, European Journal of International Relations, 19 (2013), pp. 235–255 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The popular and powerful way of mapping critical security studies into three competing schools – Paris, Aberystwyth, Copenhagen – has particularly cemented securitization theory’s inclusion into the field of critical security studies, as securitization theory is subsumed into the Copenhagen School, see, for instance, Peoples, Columba and Vaughan-Williams, Nick, Critical Security Studies: An Introduction (Abindgon and New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Barry, Buzan and Hansen, Lene, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 215 Google Scholar. The literature has especially critiqued the connection between power and the ability to securitize, as well as the ethico-political problems resulting from it. See, for example, Williams, Michael C., ‘Words, images, enemies: Securitization and international politics’, International Studies Quarterly, 47 (2003), pp. 511–531 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barthwal-Datta, Monika, ‘Securitizing threats without the state: a case study of misgovernance as a security threat in Bangladesh’, Review of International Studies, 35 (2009), pp. 277–300 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eriksson, Johan, ‘Observers or advocates?: On the political role of security analysts’, Cooperation and Conflict, 34 (1999), pp. 311–330 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Huysmans, Jef, ‘The question of the limit: Desecuritization and the aesthetics of horror in political realism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 27 (1998), pp. 569–589 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hansen, Lene, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma and the absence of gender in the Copenhagen School’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29 (2000), pp. 285–306 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, Nicole, ‘International organizations, security dichotomies and the trafficking of persons and narcotics in post-Soviet Central Asia: a critique of the securitization framework’, Security Dialogue, 37 (2006), pp. 299–317 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacKenzie, Megan, ‘Securitization and desecuritization: Female soldiers and the reconstruction of women in post-conflict Sierra Leone’, Security Studies, 18 (2009), pp. 241–261 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See, for example, Browning and McDonald, ‘The future of critical security studies’.

4 The most prominent of these is by Booth, Ken, Theory of World Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 168 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma’, p. 301. For the sake of readability, I simplify its denomination in this article to ‘silence-problem’.

6 See, for example, Seth, Sanjay (ed.), Postcolonial Theory and International Relations: A Critical Introduction (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Because they foreshadow some of the arguments developed in this article, see in particular also the critiques of white Western feminism and the critiques of Critical Theory’s Eurocentric focus on emancipation developed for example in Mohanty, Chandra, ‘Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and feminist discourses’, Feminist Review, 30 (1988), pp. 61–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hobson, John, ‘Is critical theory always for the white West and for Western imperialism? Beyond Westphilian towards a post-racist critical IR’, Review of International Studies, 33 (2007), pp. 91–116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barkawi, Tarak and Laffey, Mark, ‘The postcolonial moment in security studies’, Review of International Studies, 32 (2006), pp. 329–352 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 As Gad and Petersen note, the connection between securitization theory and postcolonialism has not yet been made. See Pram Gad, Ulrik and Lund Petersen, Karen, ‘Concepts of politics in securitization studies’, Security Dialogue, 42 (2011), pp. 315–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(p. 324, fn. 317). In establishing this connection, I place myself within a broader intellectual space opened up in particular by Barkawi and Laffey, ‘The postcolonial moment in security studies’.

8 While Spivak has a very narrow understanding of the category subaltern as ‘a position without identity’ (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Scattered speculations on the subaltern and the popular’, Postcolonial Studies, 8 (2005), pp. 475–86 (p. 476)) and not as ‘generally oppressed’ (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Response’, Parallax, 17 (2011), pp. 98–104 (p. 98)), much of the literature has used the word in the wider sense as synonymous to marginalised, disenfranchised, or ‘bottom rungs’ (Cynthia Enloe, ‘Margins, silences and bottom rungs: How to overcome the underestimation of power in the study of International Relations’, in Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia Zalewski (eds), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 186–202)). While basing much of my argumentation on Spivak, I operate with the wider and more inclusive understanding of the term.

9 The aim of this article is not to give a detailed review of this literature. Rather, I am interested in its meta-dimension, that is, in the way in which it conceptualises silence and frames marginalisation analytically.

10 See, for example, Hornsby, Jennifer and Langton, Rae, ‘Free speech and illocution’, Legal Theory, 4 (1998), pp. 21–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langton, Rae, ‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 22 (1993), pp. 293–330 Google Scholar; Hornsby, Jennifer, ‘Subordination, silencing and two ideas of illocution’, Jurisprudence, 2 (2011), pp. 379–385 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langton, ‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’, p. 315.

11 Following Austin’s division of speech acts into locutions, perlocutions, and illocutions, Hornsby and Langton capture these differences through the categories of locutionary silencing, perlocutionary frustration, and illocutionary disablement. See Hornsby and Langton, ‘Free speech and illocution’; Hornsby, ‘Subordination, silencing and two ideas of illocution’; Langton, ‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’, p. 315; see, for instance, also Mikkola, Mari, ‘Illocution, silencing and the act of refusal’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 92 (2011), pp. 415–437 (p. 416)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 While two of Hornsby and Langton’s categories can be directly transposed to the analysis of securitizations, the third category of perlocutionary frustration is inapplicable here, as the original design of securitizing speech acts is based on illocutions, not perlocutions; see Wæver, Ole, ‘The theory act: Responsilibty and exactitude as seen from securitization’, International Relations, 29 (2014), pp. 121–7 (pp. 122–3)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, securitization theory’s understanding of illocutions is built on a broader understanding of uptake than the illocutions taken into account by Hornsby and Langton’s analysis. Indeed, the performance of an illocution requires ‘uptake’, as posited by Austin, John. L., How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 116 Google Scholar. This means that someone (an ‘audience’) needs to hear and understand what the speaker says: I can only perform a warning if someone hears my words (‘watch out’) and understands their meaning as a warning. There is a debate about the required depth of ‘uptake’: is uptake secured as soon as the audience hears the locution, only when it properly understands its full meaning, or does it have to contribute to the illocution in a more substantial way by agreeing and maybe signalling agreement? Wæver follows the broad interpretation put forward by Sbisà, whereby the audience co-constitutes the illocution in a more profound way than by simple or ‘narrow’ uptake: Sbisà, Marina, ‘Uptake and conventionality in illocution’, Lodz Papers in Pragmatics, 5 (2009), pp. 33–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sbisà, Marina, ‘How to read Austin’, Pragmatics, 17 (2007), pp. 461–473 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sbisà, Marina, ‘Illocutionary force and degrees of strength in language use’, Journal of Pragmatics, 33 (2001), pp. 1791–1814 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sbisà, Marina and Fabbri, Paolo, ‘Models (?) for a pragmatic analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics, 4 (1980), pp. 301–319 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a security illocution (that is, a securitizing move) to be successful, hence, the audience needs to agree with the securitizing move: hearing and understanding it is not enough. See Wæver, ‘The theory act’.

Because securitization theory’s understanding of illocutions is therefore built on a broader understanding of uptake than the illocutions taken into account by Hornsby and Langton’s analysis, I suggest that the creation of the new category of ‘illocutionary frustration’ can retain the focus on illocutions, while capturing the active part played by the audience in producing silence that the category ‘perlocutionary frustration’ highlights.

13 This typology is phrased in linguistic terms so as to engage with the linguistic underpinnings of securitization and not be cast aside as a mere ‘sociological approach to securitization’. For an overview of the debate between the linguistic and the sociological approach to securitization, see the forum discussion in International Relations: Balzacq, Thierry, Guzzini, Stefano, Williams, Michael C., Wæver, Ole, and Patomäki, Heikki, ‘Forum: What kind of theory – if any – is securitization?’, International Relations, 29 (2015), pp. 96–136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The marginalisation processes described by the categories of locutionary silencing and illocutionary frustration have been analysed by the current literature on silence and silencing. I use Hansen and Booth’s work to illustrate each of these categories because they are prominent and emblematic examples of their specific logic of silence and marginalisation. I do not wish to suggest that they are the only scholars who have articulated concerns about securitization theory.

15 Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma’.

16 Booth, Theory of World Security, p. 166.

17 Ibid., p. 167. Booth seems to imply that he is doing little more than paraphrasing Hansen.

18 These are described in the linguistic literature as ‘structural constraints … robbing the speech of its intended force’: Langton, ‘Speech acts and unspeakable acts’, p. 323, and sometimes compared to ‘scripts’. See, for example, Wieland, Nellie, ‘Linguistic authority and convention in a speech act analysis of pornography’, Australian Journal of Philosophy, 85 (2007), pp. 435–456 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 436); Maitra, Ishani, ‘Silencing speech’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 39 (2009), pp. 309–338 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 314). Because of their similarity to Judith Butler’s concept of frames, I have dubbed these constraints ‘disabling frames’ (or, conversely, ‘enabling frames’): see in particular Butler, Judith, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (London and New York: Verso, 2009)Google Scholar.

19 Butler, Frames of War, p. 1.

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24 Bilgin, Pinar, ‘The “Western-centrism” of security studies: “Blind spot” or constitutive practice?’, Security Dialogue, 41 (2010), pp. 615–622 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 619); Hutchings, Kimberly, ‘Dialogue between whom? The role of the West/non-West distinction in promoting global dialogue in IR’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39 (2011), pp. 639–647 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 643–4).

25 Gready, Paul, ‘Culture, testimony, and the toolbox of transitional justice’, Peace Review, 20 (2008), pp. 41–48 (p. 46)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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31 Grayson, ‘Dissidence, Richard K. Ashley, and the politics of silence’.

32 Indeed, following Hansen’s original analysis, the conceptualisation of silence as a problem of speech is the prevalent mode of thinking through issues of marginalisation in the securitization literature. Two examples can illustrate this. Barthwal-Datta’s analysis of misgovernance in Bangladesh, for example, shows that securitization theory’s ‘reliance on the speech act by an actor with social capital and political authority restricts the consideration of threats which for one reason or another cannot – or are not – being articulated by someone in such a position.’ Barthwal-Datta, ‘Securitizing threats without the state’, p. 278. Similarly, Jackson concludes her analysis on human trafficking in Central Asia by pointing to the ‘silence-problem’: ‘For some scholars, a key problem with the Copenhagen School’s emphasis on language is that it suggests that actors “without a voice” cannot securitize an issue. This does seem to be the reality even if it is to be condemned. Women in Muslim Central Asia have almost no voice and have been unable or unwilling to push the issue of trafficking women for prostitution to the head of the international or state security agendas. Instead, issues such as terrorism and narcotics trafficking have received the most attention.’ Jackson, ‘International organizations’, p. 313.

33 On the different ontological and epistemological positions taken by the actor and the analyst, see, for example, Hansen, Lene, ‘The politics of securitization and the Muhammad cartoon crisis: a post-structuralist perspective’, Security Dialogue, 42 (2011), pp. 357–369 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 360); Eriksson, ‘Observers or advocates?’.

34 See Ciuta, Felix, ‘Security and the problem of context: a hermeneutical critique of securitization theory’, Review of International Studies, 35 (2009), pp. 301–326 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 315).

35 Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole, and de Wilde, Jaap, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), pp. 39–40 Google Scholar.

36 Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, Can the Subaltern Speak? (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988)Google Scholar. Her work is considered ‘the classic essay on the problem of speaking for cultural others’: Sharp, Geographies of Postcolonialism, p. 111; see also Maggio, J., ‘“Can the subaltern be heard?”: Political theory, translation, representation, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 32 (2007), pp. 419–443 (p. 419)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?, pp. 275–6.

38 Ibid., p. 297.

39 Sharp, Geographies of Postcolonialism, p. 114; Sajed, Alina, ‘The post always rings twice? The Algerian War, poststructuralism and the postcolonial in IR theory’, Review of International Studies, 38 (2012), pp. 141–163 (p. 143)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?, pp. 280–1.

41 Ibid., p. 275; Kapoor, Ilan, ‘Hyper-self-reflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World “Other”‘, Third World Quarterly, 25 (2004), pp. 627–647 (p. 628)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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43 Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?, p. 306.

44 Booth, Theory of World Security.

45 Jackson, ‘International organizations’, p. 313.

46 Barthwal-Datta, ‘Securitizing threats without the state’, p. 278.

47 For a critique, see, for example, Dowler, Lorraine, ‘Gender, militarization and sovereignty’, Geography Compass, 6 (2012), pp. 490–499 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 494); Oliver, Kelly, Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media (New York: Columbia Universtiy Press, 2007), p. 47 Google Scholar.

48 Ticktin, Miriam, ‘The gendered human of humanitarianism: Medicalising and politicising sexual violence’, Gender & History, 23 (2011), pp. 250–265 (p. 256)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma’, p. 297.

50 Dowler, ‘Gender, militarization and sovereignty’, p. 494; Oliver, Women as Weapons of War, p. 47.

51 See, for instance, Brown, Katherine E., ‘Contesting the securitization of British Muslims’, Interventions, 12 (2010), pp. 171–182 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Hoerschelmann, Kathrin, ‘Breaking ground – marginality and resistance in (post) unification Germany’, Political Geography, 20 (2001), pp. 981–1004 (p. 986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Kapoor, ‘Hyper-self-reflexive development?’, p. 631; MacEwan, Cheryl, ‘Postcolonialism, feminism and development: Intersections and dilemmas’, Progress in Development Studies, 1 (2001), pp. 93–111 (p. 98)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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55 This reading of the 2015/16 Cologne New Year’s Eve events is not an exhaustive analysis of the case, nor does it aim at being so. It merely serves the purpose of illustrating some of the effects that result from an application of the securitization framework.

56 See the documents of the parliamentary request for an inquiry commission: LT-Drs. 16/10798, ‘Antrag zur Einsetzung eines Untersuchungsschusschusses gemäß Artikel 41 der Landesverfassung zu den massiven Straftaten in der Sivesternacht 2015 und zur Frage von rechtsfreien Räumen in Nordrhein-Westfalen (“Untersuchungsschausschuss Silvesternacht 2015”)’, Drucksache des Landtags Nordrhein-Westfalen 16/10798 (19 January 2016), available at: {https://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/Navigation_R2010/030-Parlament-und-Wahlen/015-Ausschuesse-und-Gremien/030-Untersuchungsausschuesse/PUAIV/Inhalt.jsp} accessed 30 October 2016.

57 Florian Flade, Marcel Pauly, and Kristian Frigelj, ‘1054 Strafanzeigen nach Übergriffen von Köln’, Welt N24 (10 February 2016), available at: {https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article152018368/1054-Strafanzeigen-nach-Uebergriffen-von-Koeln.html} accessed 27 October 2016.

58 Andreas Rossmann, ‘Interview mit Monika Hauser: Rassismus hilft auch hier nicht weiter’, Frankfurter Allgemeine (23 January 2016), available at: {http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/frauenrechtlerin-moni...exualisierte-gewalt-14027180.html?printPagedArticle=true#pageIndex_2} accessed 26 October 2016.

59 Margarete Stokowski, ‘Des Rudels Kern’, Spiegel Online (7 January 2016), available at: {http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/margarete-stokowski-ueber-sexualisierte-gewalt-a-1070905-druck.html} accessed 28 October 2016.

60 Sascha Lobo, ‘Mob und Gegenmob’, Spiegel Online (6 January 2016), available at: {http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/koeln-silvester-mob-und-gegenmob-kolumne-a-1070724-druck.html} accessed 26 October 2016.

61 LT-Drs. 16/10798 (2016).

62 Hannah Beitzer, ‘Über sexuelle Gewalt sprechen – ohne Rassismus’, Süddeutsche.de (6 January 2016), available at: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/2.220/uebergriffe-in-koeln-ueber-sexuelle-gewalt-sprechen-ohne-rassismus-1.2806434} accessed 26 October 2016

63 This reflects wider dynamics identified by the literature as the securitization of migrants and migration. See, for example, Bourbeau, Philippe, The Securitization of Migration: A Study of Movement and Order (London: Routledge, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Watson, Scott D., The Securitization of Humanitarian Migration: Digging Moats and Sinking Boats (London and New York: Routledge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gerard, Alison, The Securitization of Migration and Refugee Women (London: Routledge, 2014)Google Scholar; Lazaridis, Gabriella and Skleparis, Dimitris, ‘Securitization of migration and the far right: the case of Greek security professionals’, International Migration, 54 (2016), pp. 176–192 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Banai, Ayalet and Kreide, Regina, ‘Securitization of migration in Germany: the ambivalences of citizenship and human rights’, Citizenship Studies, 21 (2017), pp. 1–15 Google Scholar; Curley, Melissa G. and Wong, Siu-Iun, Security and Migration in Asia: The Dynamics of Securitization (London: Taylor and Francis, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lazaridis, Gabriella and Wadia, Khursheed, The Securitization of Migration in the EU: Debates since 9/11 (Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)Google Scholar.

64 ‘Migrant men and European women’, The Economist (16 January 2016), available at: {http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21688397-absorb-newcomers-peacefully-europe-must-insist-they-respect-values-such-tolerance-and} accessed 30 October 2016.

65 Jacob Augstein, ‘Lust der Angst’, Spiegel Online (11 January 2016), available at: {http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/koeln-wenn-sexismus-und-rassismus-sich-treffen-kolumne-a-1071403-druck.html} accessed 26 October 2016; Christina Clemm and Sabine Hark, ‘Sind wir über Nacht zu einer feministischen Nation geworden? Etliche Reaktionen auf die Köner Silvesternacht sind verlogen: Ein Gespräch über ungenügendes Sexualstrafrecht und die fatale Verquickung von Sexismus und Rassismus’, Zeit Online (18 January 2016), available at: {http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-01/feminismus-uebergriffe-koeln-clemm-hark-10-nach-8} accessed 28 October 2016.

66 Beitzer, ‘Über sexuelle Gewalt sprechen’.

67 ‘Frauen klagen an. Nach den Sex-Attacken von Migranten: Sind wir noch tolerant oder schon blind?’, Focus Online (9 January 2016), available at: {http://www.focus.de/magazin/archiv/titel-nacht-der-schande_id_5196177.html?drucken=1} accessed 29 October 2016.

68 Beitzer, ‘Über sexuelle Gewalt sprechen’.

69 See, for instance, Sophia Maier, ‘So denkt ein syrischer Flüchtling wirklich über Frauen’, Huffington Post (8 January 2016), available at: {http://www.huffingtonpost.de/sophia-maier/frauen-syrischer-fluechtling_b_8938238.html} accessed 6 November 2016.

70 Stokowski, ‘Des Rudels Kern’; Beitzer, ‘Über sexuelle Gewalt sprechen’.

71 These problems were described earlier with reference mainly to the critiques of securitization theory. As shown in the case of the Cologne New Year’s Eve events, however, these are also frequent dynamics in the process of securitization itself, where securitizations ‘for’ others are common moves.

72 Lobo, ‘Mob und Gegenmob’.

73 Stokowski, ‘Des Rudels Kern’.

74 Ibid.

75 ‘Rassistische Titelbilder: “Süddeutsche” entschuldigt sich, “Focus” nicht’, Spiegel Online (10 January 2016), available at: {http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/focus-und-sueddeutsche-zei...-entschuldigung-eine-rechtfertigung-fuer-titel-a-1071334-druck.html} accessed 29 October 2016.

76 Hannah Beitzer, ‘“Die Gesellschaft erwartet von Flüchtlingen, dass sie Übermenschen sind”‘, Süddeutsche.de (26 November 2015), available at: {http://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/2.220/fluechtlinge-muslimischen-maennern-begegnen-die-menschen-mit-angst-1.2745018} accessed 26 October 2016.

77 Stokowski, ‘Des Rudels Kern’.

78 Augstein, ‘Lust der Angst’.

79 Beitzer, ‘Über sexuelle Gewalt sprechen’; Lobo, ‘Mob und Gegenmob’; Rossmann, ‘Interview mit Monika Hauser’.

80 Clemm and Hark, ‘Sind wir über Nacht zu einer feministischen Nation geworden?’.

81 Rossmann, ‘Interview mit Monika Hauser’; Hannah Beitzer, ‘Silvesternacht in Köln: “Wo war die Polizei?”’, Süddeutsche.de (5 January 2016), available at: {http://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/2.220/silvesternacht-in-koeln-wir-muessen-angstraeume-sichtbar-machen-1.2806314} accessed 26 October 2016.

82 ‘Sex education: Europe is trying to teach its gender norms to refugees’, The Economist (15 October 2016), available at: {https://www.economist.com/europe/2016/10/15/europe-is-trying-to-teach-its-gender-norms-to-refugees} accessed 27 May 2018.

83 Beitzer, ‘Silvesternacht in Köln’.

84 Ibid.; Rossmann, ‘Interview mit Monika Hauser’; Stokowski, ‘Des Rudels Kern’.

85 An important element here is the myth of the ‘black rapist’. See, for example, Davis, Angela, Women, Race & Class (New York: Random House, Inc., 1983), pp. 172–201 Google Scholar; Hodes, Martha, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Ono, Kent A., Contemporary Media Culture and the Remnants of a Colonial Past (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009), pp. 53–54 Google Scholar.

86 Maggio, ‘“Can the subaltern be heard?”’, p. 427. Maggio uses this term to show that, however well intentioned, it is impossible to intervene benevolently. The intervention presented in this article, for example, falls into this category.

87 Booth, Theory of World Security, p. 168.

88 Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma’; Hansen, ‘The politics of securitization and the Muhammad cartoon crisis’; Hansen, Lene, ‘Theorizing the image for security studies: Visual securitization and the Muhammad cartoon crisis’, European Journal of International Relations, 17 (2011), pp. 51–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hansen, Lene, ‘How images make world politics: International icons and the case of Abu Ghraib’, Review of International Studies, 41 (2015), pp. 263–288 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 These problems are partly discussed by Hansen in her work on the body and the image, see Hansen, ‘The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma; Hansen, ‘The politics of securitization and the Muhammad cartoon crisis’; Hansen, ‘Theorizing the image for security studies’; Hansen, ‘How images make world politics’.

90 This, of course, raises the question about which audience matters. Generally speaking, the study of publics has remained ‘undertheorised and underproblematised’ in security studies. See Walters, William and D’Aoust, Anne Marie, ‘Bringing publics into critical security studies: Notes for a research strategy’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 44 (2015), pp. 45–68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 47). The securitization literature addressing the concept of the audience has mostly focused on the lack of specification about who or what constitutes a ‘sufficient audience’: Barthwal-Datta, ‘Securitizing threats without the state’, p. 278; Odysseas Christou and Constantinos Adamides, ‘Energy securitization and desecuritization in the New Middle East’, Security Dialogue, 44 (2013), pp. 507–522 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 510), the lack of conceptualisation of the relationship between the audience and the securitizing actor: Leonard, Sarah and Kaunert, Christian, ‘Reconceptualizing the audience in securitization theory’, in Thierry Balzacq (ed.), Securitization Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve (London Routledge, 2011), pp. 57–76 (p. 58)Google Scholar, and the lack of awareness to the possibility of existence of different and parallel audiences: Christou and Adamides, ‘Energy securitization and desecuritization in the New Middle East’, p. 510; Vuori, Juha A., ‘Illocutionary logic and strands of securitization: Applying the theory of securitization to the study of non-democratic political orders’, European Journal of International Relations, 14 (2008), pp. 65–99 (p. 72)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 The solution to problems of hearing and understanding the culturally ‘other’ is usually found in the notion of ‘translation’, which – unlike the act of representation/re-presentation – is described as an ethical encounter that acknowledges the impossibility to ‘accurately signify the other’ and the inaccessibility of knowledge. See Maggio, ‘“Can the subaltern be heard?”’, p. 434.

92 Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, ‘The politics of translation’, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 397–416 Google Scholar; Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, ‘Translation as culture’, Parallax, 6 (2000), pp. 13–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, ‘Translating into English’, in Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood (eds), Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Venuti (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader. For an overview, see Sherry, Simon, ‘Translation, postcolonialism and cultural studies’, Meta, 42 (1997), pp. 462–477 Google Scholar.

93 Thaddeus Jackson, Patrick, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and its Implications for the Study of World Politics (New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 9 Google Scholar.

94 Fluck, Matthew, ‘The best there is? Communication, objectivity and the future of critical International Relations theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 20 (2014), pp. 56–79 (pp. 62–3)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 For a similar argument about the way in which ‘reflexive theory’ has been equated with critical and emancipatory theory, see Hamati-Ataya, Inanna, ‘Reflectivity, reflexivity, reflexivism: IR’s “reflexive turn” – and beyond’, European Journal of International Relations, 19 (2012), pp. 669–694 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 See, in particular, Judith Butler’s work on speech acts and performativity, for example: Butler, Judith, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York and London: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar; Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar.

97 Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?. In her example, Spivak draws on the case of Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri who committed suicide in 1926 at the age of 16 or 17. The reasons for her suicide remained mysterious at the time: since she hanged herself while menstruating, she could not have done so because of an illicit pregnancy. In fact, and unbeknownst at the time, she was part of an Indian resistance group and had been tasked to commit a political murder she could not face the courage to carry out. Spivak rereads her act of suicide while menstruating as a form of resistance that displaced dominant legitimations of female suicide.

98 Scott, James C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. xvi Google Scholar.

99 See, for example, Nunes, ‘Reclaiming the political’; Browning and McDonald, ‘The future of critical security studies’. Exposing the politics of security is considered a critical move because it shows that ‘security’ is not an innocent category but in fact deeply entrenched in political struggles and carries political power. The space this opens for potential desecuritizations has variously been described as a progressive, critical, or at least normative element of the theory. See, for example, Hansen, Lene, ‘Reconstructing desecuritization: the normative-political in the Copenhagen School and directions for how to apply it’, Review of International Studies, 38 (2012), pp. 525–546 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The political impulse behind desecuritizations came directly from the ‘extraordinary’ context of Cold War Ostpolitik in the 1980s. Thus the original impulse behind desecuritizations (and securitization theory) originated from a desire to theoretically undermine the ‘Cold War logic of “Clausewitz reversed” where all politics had just become the prolongation of war by other means’: Balzacq, Thierry and Guzzini, Stefano, ‘Introduction: “What kind of theory – if any – is securitization?”’, International Relations, 29 (2015), pp. 97–102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 Following its foundation in the 1990s and an initial debate around the meaning and scope of the term ‘critical’, critical security studies has since settled on a very broad understanding of the term. In their 1997 landmark volume, Krause and Williams for example explicitly do not ‘define a precise meaning of the term critical in either a methodological or political sense’ because ‘part of the development of a broader conception of security studies (and critical security studies) requires that its growth not be straitjacketed by the imposition of criteria of inclusion and exclusion or by a renewed call for definitive answers’. See Krause, Keith and Williams, Michael, Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (Minneapolis: University of Minnesoty Press, 1997), p. viii Google Scholar. Current critical security studies textbooks still follow their example, see, for example, Peoples and Vaughan-Williams, Critical Security Studies, p. 1.

101 Historically, the more narrow definitions of the term ‘critical’ have been articulated and defended by emancipation-oriented Critical Theorists of Frankfurt School lineage, the most notable of whom is Booth, Theory of World Security. As both the thinness and Eurocentrism of these approaches have since been critiqued (Beate Jahn, ‘One step forward, two steps back: Critical theory as the latest edition of liberal idealism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 27 (1998), pp. 613–41; Barkawi and Laffey, ‘The postcolonial moment in security studies’), I suggest it is more fruitful instead to turn towards a broader neo-Marxist understanding of the term, such as the one defended by Nancy Fraser. Following this, a critical theory needs to reveal relations of dominance and subordination between dominant and marginal groups and reveal the ideological character of the alternate approaches that obfuscate, justify, or rationalise these power relations. See Fraser, Nancy, ‘What’s critical about critical theory? The case of Habermas and gender’, in Nancy Fraser (ed.), Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

While the arguments for securitization theory’s critical dimension most easily fit the wider understanding of criticality put forward by critical security studies, a case can be made for the way in which exposing the politics of security and thus opening up an agenda for desecuritization might even almost fit the more narrow definition of criticality put forward here.

102 In a similar vein, see, for example, the way in which Barkin and Sjoberg recuperate traditionally positivist methods for interpretive and critical purposes: Barkin, Samuel and Sjoberg, Laura (eds), Interpretive Quantification: Methodological Explorations for Critical and Constructivist IR (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103 With this statement, I echo Fraser’s assertion that ‘there is no philosophically interesting difference between a critical theory of society and an uncritical one’: Fraser, ‘What’s critical about critical theory?’, p. 113.